Regarding Voice Chat & Leauge

Ignis0·10/23/2015, 1:47:58 PM·9 votes·6,914 views

A couple of my ranked games I've used skype to communicate with random people who I got on my team in ranked. Not a single one of those games did anyone get reported. Why did no one get reported? Because no one was toxic. Why was no one toxic? Because people are keyboard warriors and can't say half the things they want to say in voice. Even in the games where I had a 0/8 (or something like that) morgana who thought she was front line nobody flamed the guy. Yes, I understand that people can and will still be toxic in voice chat if it's ever implemented into league. But the truth is it won't be as bad as Riot makes it out to be. We can increase communication, synergy, and all the good stuff. Also mic muting would pretty much solve all those spooky toxic kids riot is afraid of.

32 Comments

RiotLyte10/24/2015, 8:14:55 PM13 votes

Ironically, I just answered a question about voice chat on Ask.fm, which is here:

QUESTION: Are you trying to make the game full PG? (Like even below PG-13) Couse it looks like you are trying to completely remove toxicity when there will always be people that act ughh... silly.Couse for example, voice chat would help immensly but your toxicity "excuse" ruins that idea...

League is a hardcore game, and it's played by many adults so no, we're not trying to make it a PG-13 game. In fact, we're not against offensive language per se. For example, saying "Fuck I missed that skillshot" or "Fuck, that was a bad engage, sorry" is completely fine and is not punished. You're only punished when you start focusing your language against someone else, for example, "Fuck you asshole, wtf was that play. Uninstll plz." Of course, hate speech, death threats and more severe language is not OK in any context, and that stuff will be punished with pretty much zero tolerance.

With regards to voice chat, we're not opposed to voice chat. A lot of research suggests that voice chat between friends is an awesome experience, but voice chat with strangers is more hit and miss. These are known problems with voice chat and these issues exist in every game. If we do voice chat, we'd like to try some new features to tackle these problems but right now, all our development teams are focused on other priorities.

To the OP though, there's a huge difference between 3rd party voice chat and integrated voice chat. Players that already have a voice chat solution installed, and are willing to add a stranger to their personal voice chat friends list and voice chat in a game are a very different, self-selected population compared to the general playerbase. In many cases, you could say these players are more likely to want to voice chat with others and very few people would do this purposely to yell at someone or be toxic to someone. If we had integrated voice chat, it would be available for everyone in the game, which has very different player behaviors.

TemporaryFox10/23/2015, 8:00:24 PM6 votes

I think an integrated voice chat system would be great. Riot should at least experiment with the idea, the community really needs help. However, (this is going to sound really lame) I might not be inclined to use voice chat very often because I'm a girl and the harassment gets really old really quickly. I guess muting would fix the issue but muting seems a little dramatic.

BastionKross10/25/2015, 3:02:15 AM4 votes

Also mic muting would pretty much solve all those spooky toxic kids riot is afraid of.

No, it wouldn't.

We consider the "Mute" feature to be a last resort. When a player has to use the "Mute" feature, the damage has already been done. Your experience is already worse, you are already less likely to play another game, and you already don't enjoy League as much as before. The "Mute" feature is a last resort to prevent any further harassment or abuse. Just because a feature like this exists doesn't mean it's OK for players to spew hate speech or be racist or verbally abusive. The vast majority of players in League hate these types of behaviors, and we should respect these players and not tell toxic players it's OK to be dicks just because a "Mute" feature exists.

Lyte said this a few months ago. "Just mute them" is never a solution. Whether it's voice or text, it doesn't matter.

Reporting toxic people on voice chat is a huge hurdle as well. Riot would have to listen to an entire recording instead of simply scanning a chat log unless you somehow provided timestamps with your report. Who the hell is going to remember exactly when the Thresh told you to kill yourself? No one I know of provides timestamps with reports right now.

Also "a couple of my ranked games" is a laughably small sample size.

All this is in addition to the great point Lyte himself brought up, where the type of person who actively seeks out communication with teammates through a third party program are generally the type of people who purposefully will not be toxic; and do not represent the vast majority of League players since I don't know of anyone in a single game of mine that has announced "Hey guys, here's my skype name. Hit me up." in champ select. And I've been around since season 3.

LaoBushido10/23/2015, 1:52:31 PM3 votes

the other problem is that it would cause a decrease in gaming quality, yes skype may use more processing power but that is external. also a "couple" of games does not warrant enough data, compared to the millions on games per day also not everyone is as positive as you.

PDE5 Inhibitors10/23/2015, 2:54:45 PM3 votes

And muting currently solves the problems they have....yet people just chose not to do it and make it a big deal lol.

I agree, though. We need voice chat. But make it always on, like Skype. I tried DoTA and having to click another button just to talk is just too much for me at the moment lol.

Hellioning10/24/2015, 9:03:11 PM3 votes

Eh, having played DotA2, I can safely say that I'd rather not have to voice chat with strangers.

ADepressedLeona10/24/2015, 9:06:53 PM3 votes

Voice chat still sounds like aids.

I've played a lot of FPS games with voice chat (Both on console and PC) and on nearly every one of them, I insta mute all the players whenever I get in a game.

With the kind of community that league has (Very similar to these FPS's, if not a bit worse) I would expect nothing different.

disregardable10/23/2015, 3:11:55 PM2 votes

"Not as bad as they say" is still a lot worse than what we have now. Case closed. No one wants to listen to some raging 14 year old.

ZT Xperimentor10/23/2015, 8:17:12 PM2 votes

I agree, though I'd add the ability to mute yourself; I highly doubt others want to hear sniffling when someone has a cold/flu. Since allergies spike in the fall, it'd be nice to share a little courtesy.

AJStarhiker10/25/2015, 5:37:59 PM1 votes

I generally opt out if voice chat is available. A big reason is that I often play at night and talking wakes people up who then interrupt me. Annoying if I'm just playing an FPS, but I'm not going to risk the leave in LoL

AntiSkillshot10/25/2015, 2:39:53 PM1 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQFyqtwUK8E

Kat Head10/25/2015, 3:59:58 PM1 votes

I feel like the pros of voice chat greatly outweigh the cons of voice chat. I do not think it is every going to happen though, Riots infrastructure struggles to handle the game itself.